News Briefs

Sinn Fein Leader Invited To White House for St. Patrick's

Los Angeles TimesWASHINGTON

Brushing aside British objections, President Clinton gave Irish
nationalist leader Gerry Adams permission Thursday to raise political
contributions on his next visit to America and invited the once-outlawed
official to a St. Patrick's Day party at the White House.

The latest signal of a warming relationship came after Adams' Sinn Fein
party - the political wing of the Irish Republican Army - told the White
House it would consider surrendering Irish Republican Army weapons as part
of peace negotiations with Britain.

Protestant Unionist and Catholic Republican leaders are now studying a
framework document that would chart the way for all-party talks concerning
the future of Northern Ireland.

White House officials said they saw Sinn Fein's gesture as more evidence
that nationalists are increasingly committed to peace. "We see momentum
that we hope is becoming irreversible," said a senior administration
official.

But British officials, speaking in London and Washington, indicated they
did not attach the same significance to Sinn Fein's words. They did not
attempt to hide their displeasure with Clinton's decision to grant Adams a
visa permitting fund-raising.

Pacific Storms Pummel California

Los Angeles TimesSAN FRANCISCO

A ferocious storm pounded Northern California Thursday, pushing
floodwaters over the banks of the Russian and Napa Rivers, forcing hundreds
of residents to flee their homes for the second time in only two months and
closing dozens of state highways.

About 60 miles north of San Francisco in Guerneville, where hundreds of
homes were inundated in January, the Russian River was rising as much as a
foot an hour during the day and was expected to crest at 12 feet above
flood level by Thursday night.

"It has already reached flood stage," said Janice Atkinson, a
spokeswoman for the Sonoma County Office of Emergency Services. "It has
been highly recommended that residents in low-lying areas evacuate and move
to higher ground."

In the Napa Valley town of St. Helena, more than 300 residents took
refuge in an emergency shelter when the Napa River rose to a record level
of more than five feet above flood stage and water began rising around
homes, a mobile home park and apartment houses.

Downriver, residents of the city of Napa were protecting their homes and
businesses with sandbags and evacuating low-lying areas in anticipation of
floodwaters not equalled since 1986, when the region experienced record
flooding.

Thursday's storm was so severe that the Coast Guard halted all
commercial shipping traffic into and out of San Francisco Bay because of
winds gusting to 45 knots and swells in the bay of 11 feet.